hackaday.com Archives - 23 February 2013, Saturday

Controlling the pH level of a solution is usually a tedious task. Adding an acid or base to the solution will change the pH, but manually monitoring the levels and adding the correct amount isn’t fun. [Reza] rigged up an automated pH controller to keep a solution’s pH steady. The buil...

[Matt Galisa] decided to try his hand at setting up the Belkin WeMo outlet without using a Smartphone app . The hardware is a pass-through for mains voltage which allows you to switch the plug over the network. It has a built-in WiFi module which normally connects to your home network...

We at [HAD] love any hack that combines children’s toys with science-fiction technology, so seeing a Tickle-Me-Elmo “frozen” in [Carbonite] is a definite win in our book. It’s also a great argument for joining your local Hackerspace, or just getting together with some like-minded frie...

It may just be another 3D printer, but [Jonas] and [Simon]‘s Kühling & Kühling RepRap Industrial is a cross between a work of art and a beautiful machine tool. It also looks to be a pretty nice 3D printer, to boot. The Kühling RepRap is built out of 20mm t-slot aluminum with plastic s...

this Python script used for WeMo hacking . It was originally meant to issue commands to the outlet once it had passed the initial setup. [Matt] followed along but couldn’t get an answer on the port he expected. It turns out that the device listens on a different port until the initial...

Last summer, we here at Hackaday participated in the Red Bull Creation Contest. Basically, twelve teams were given webcams and instructions to build something cool. The teams live streamed their build process, and the best of the bunch won a trip to the New York Maker Faire. [Jason Na...

This entire project could have been done as an app, drawing the maze and ball virtually on the screen. But that wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as what [Matt] accomplished. He built a little Labyrinth which responds to the accelerometer in his phone . Take a close look at that handse...

[Leland Flynn] did a great job of picking apart the firmware image for a Westell 9100EM FiOS router . Unfortunately he didn’t actually find the information he was looking for. But he’s not quite done poking around yet either. If you have never tried to make sense of an embedded Linux ...

a home lighting hack that doesn’t require you to think about it after the initial setup. Instead of requiring the user to launch an app and select a lighting state, it uses NFC tags to select a lighting configuration. The tags can be placed in different parts of the house so that sett...

If you’ve got a BeagleBone and an FPGA board you should give this Bitcoin mining rig a try . The hardware uses brute-force to solve hashes, looking for the rare sets that can be used as digital currency. This particular example is designed for the LOGi-bone which is an FPGA shield for...

Possibly the most important part of the build is figuring out how to hinge all the weight a bookcase will carry. His solution was to use a set of four heavy-duty casters. He cut off the wheels from one pair and the mounting brackets from another. By welding the brackets on in place of...

A lot of the board houses out there including Seeed and ITead studios have a fixed size for circuit boards before the price goes up. A one-inch square board costs the same as a much larger 5cm x 5cm board, making panelized PCBs a great way to get more boards for the same amount of mon...

Yeah, it’s another home made Raspberry Pi case, but [Gabriel]‘s Mini Playstation 3.14 is the bee’s knees. The enclosure was once a metal gift box originally intended for gift cards. With a few whacks of a Dremel, the world finally has a new PS3 that runs Linux. Up there with The Secre...

Related:

The jack on the side accepts the barrel connector from a 12V wall wart. [Kenneth] mentions that the 2.1mm jack is a standard he uses in all of his projects. Inside there’s a switch mode power supply that provides the regulated 5V to each USB port. We really like the fact that he added...

[Christian] wrote in to tell us about his third-generation Arduino MIDI sequencer (translated ) called the AM808 VX3. He had already laid a strong base for the project in his previous versions. But the user interface was still frustrating at times and that’s where this version comes i...

[Michael] built his own LED marquee using individual diodes . Despite his choice to forego the 8×8 or 5×7 modules we often see in these projects, his decision to spin a dedicated PCB saved him a lot of trouble during assembly. Sure, he still had to solder 180 leads on the 9×18 grid of...

Obviously this is a Wake-On-Lan type of situation, but the hardware he has chosen to use doesn’t include those features. Since he already had this TP-Link 703n on hand he decided to use it as a controller for the computer. His method is quite clever. The router is running a script tha...

Here’s a weekend junk bin project if we’ve ever seen one. [Pat] used a quartet of computer fans to make his laser Spirograph . Deciding to try this simple build for yourself will run you through a lot of basics when it comes to interfacing hardware with a microcontroller. In this case...

Sure, adding a microcontroller would make this dead simple. All you need to do is program the chip to emulate the printer’s end of the communications scheme. But that’s not the approach taken here. Instead the USB to RS232 (serial) converter also pictured above is used as a reset sign...

The project seen here is a temperature data logger. The frosted diffuser covering everything but the LCD screen and gives you a glimpse of what’s mounted to the back panel. He connected the four different protoboard components, along with a battery pack, to each other use right angle ...

You can look and look, but you won’t find a Super Nintendo inside of this retro gaming rig. [Webrow] is giving his vintage hardware a rest, and taking this all-in-one game emulator suitcase wherever he goes. The machine at the heart of his build is of course a Raspberry Pi. You really...

This isn’t a hack that shows you how to start a car without the keys. It’s a way to ditch the bulky keyring for a set of fold-out keys . [Colonel Crunch] removed the blades from the pocket knife and replaced them with the two keys for his car (one is ignition and door locks, the other...

Ever so slowly, we’re inching towards a world of Internet-based electronic design tools. The state of these tools, including Upverter and other cloud-based solutions, hasn’t been all that great until now; with any new piece of schematic capture and PCB layout software, the libraries w...

This pair of musical keyboard hacks both use light to detect inputs. The pair of tips came in on the same day, which sparks talk of consipiracy theory here at Hackaday. Something in the weather must influence what types of projects people take on because we frequently see trends like ...

The main components include the solid state relay at the bottom of the image. This lets the ATtiny13 switch mains voltage appliances. The microcontroller (on the copper clad square at the center of the breadboard) interfaces with the green radio frequency board to its left. On the rig...

Believe it or not, you can now squeeze wood through the nozzle of your 3D printer . This new addition to the maker’s palette of 3D printer filaments comes from the mind of [Kai Parthy]. The new filament – going by the name Laywood – is a mix of recycled wood fibers and polymer binders...

. They leverage use of low temperatures to slow down the RAM in a device. In this case, the target phone must already be powered on. Booting a phone that uses the encryption offered by Android 4.0 and newer requires the owner’s pass code to decrypt the user partition. But it then rema...

For a few years now, [Michael] has wanted to put the guts of a Game Boy Advance – the small clamshell version with a backlit LCD – into the classic and comfortable DMG-01 ‘brick’ Game Boy. He’s finally finished with his project , and we’ve got to say it’s looking pretty good. The buil...

We’ve seen Arduino-powered Twitter machines, and even some that can send text messages, but how about one that’s a video phone ? That’s what the guys over at Cooking Hacks put together with their very impressive 3G Arduino shield . On board the shield is an internal GPS receiver, micr...

First off… nice work! I really need to get a similar set-up, but I’ve been too busy with other projects to follow up on that need. This gives me something to think about. Second… if attempting to powder coat aluminum, there are a few things to take into account to get the best finish....